


Bhavacakra

by Kedibonye



Series: The Troika [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Gen, Parallel Universes, Pre-Canon, Reincarnation, The Golden Trio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-20 01:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13136247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedibonye/pseuds/Kedibonye
Summary: They walk two lifetimes, straddle two universes grounded in different morals, beliefs and traditions. In one, they become known as the Golden Trio. In another, they’re simply Team Seven. The threats they face and the abilities they wield are different, but in both they will grow to save the world. As they grow, their duality will make all the difference.Or, the early stages of the the snowball effect.





	1. Jnana: Hermione & Sakura

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Poco a Poco Morendo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794044) by [wise_guys_and_thugs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wise_guys_and_thugs/pseuds/wise_guys_and_thugs). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In both worlds, she is precocious.

Hermione Jean Granger is born September 19, 1979 to Dr. & Dr. Granger in Raynes Park in London. Her mother, culturally Greek, and her father, a shameless Shakespearean buff, compromise on the name after he vetoes Eudora, from her great-aunt, and she vetoes Beatrice, from _Much Ado About Nothing_. She is the first of the trio born, and perhaps she was always destined to be the big sister of the lot. She has just mastered crawling, is just beginning teething, when on March 28, Year 51 of the Hidden Village Era (or, if you’re from Konoha, Post-Establishment) Haruno Sakura is born. Not the most creative name on the part of her parents, as she is born with a tuft of pink hair in the second week of the Sakura Bloom Festival in Konohagakure.

 

Hermione’s first word, like most English children, is mama. Sakura’s first word is maa-maa as well, much to her parent’s amusement. In Konoha, it’s a filler phrase, the equivalent of “that’s okay” or “we’ll see”, and it fits their daughter who so rarely fusses so well that they’ll continue to tell the story for years.

 

Hermione’s three, drawing her first stick-figure family, when she first begins to realize that not everyone lives two lives the way she does. She draws herself twice, the younger pink-haired version with bright green eyes, the father with violet-red hair and the mother with sunflower-yellow locks. Hermione is holding hands with her kaa-chan and tou-san. Sakura is holding hands with mom and dad.

 

When she asks her parents why they act so different when they’re in Konoha, she’s met with polite bafflement. A temper tantrum later, as she tries to convey that _no_ , _she’s the pink haired girl too, and look mommy don’t you recognize me?!_ And she lets the matter drop. Her parents become convinced that Sakura is her imaginary friend. She never mentions mom and dad to her kaa-chan or tou-san.

 

It’s Hermione who achieves many of the early-life milestones first. She’s the first to learn to read, the first to get a library card, the first to make it all the way across the monkey bars at the park. As Hermione, she has the advantage of a few more months of growth. Sakura’s never far behind, with a mind convinced she already knows how to do many of the things she tries. There are different nursery rhymes, different children’s games, different bedtime stories, but she delights in them all the same.

 

Ironically, it’s Sakura, not Hermione, who starts school first. She begins what will be a single year at the “pre-Academy”, easily testing into the second trimester straight away. In one world, she’s grown up on stories of heroes in capes. In Konoha, heroes wear burnished metal forehead protectors. As Sakura, she learns that she has the potential to become one of those super-powered heroes herself, and she knows right away what she wants to do.

 

Once she learns to read and write properly, of course. Kanji and hiragana are much more difficult for her than the ABC’s of England.

 

It’s as Hermione that she first learns to read. She’s instantly in love, constantly badgering her parents to read her Mathilda again or to take her back to the library so she can swap out one set of books for another. She reads of princesses, of knights in shining armor who slay the dragon and save the girl. Jokingly, her dad asks one day if she’d like to be a princess too. Hermione scoffs in response.

 

“Don’t be silly, daddy. I’m not gonna be some stupid princess like that. I’m gonna be a _kunoichi_.”

 

This conviction will only grow stronger once she learns of Tsunade the Slug Sannin. She’ll imagine herself, Hermione and Sakura alike, punching holes through fortress walls to save damsels (or damoiseau) of her own. She’ll never doubt, with the certainty only five-year-olds can possess, that it’s possible.

 

When she’s six, Sakura starts at The Academy and Hermione enters primary school.

 

It’s only there that she really begins to understand how _different_ the two worlds she lives in are.

 

In England, there are no ninja. The Prime Minister didn’t lose _his_ life slaying a nine-tailed demon fox. People can’t learn to breathe fire, summon talking animals, or walk on water. (Except Jesus, but Hermione’s fairly certain he was like the Sage of Six Paths, just instead of giving everyone chakra, he gave everyone Eternal Life. Hermione’s mother is Orthodox, but thanks to Sakura she grows up with an interesting understanding of religion.)

 

To Hermione, the worst difference she discovers is that in England, when you punch a classmate they don’t correct your form. They don’t tell you where to aim to do more damage next time either. Instead, they scold you and call your parents. Instead, you get in trouble.

 

In both lives, she learns The Rules quickly after that. She learns to compartmentalize Hermione and Sakura until they sometimes feel like different people. As Sakura, Hermione becomes an Inner expressing all the thoughts Sakura shouldn’t have. As Hermione, Sakura is the part of her that’s loud, outspoken, and self-confident.

 

On advantage England does have to Konoha, she decides, are the literal millions of books that exist just waiting for Hermione to read. Sakura’s devastated the first time she visits the civilian library in Konoha, when she realizes the entire collection is smaller than the children’s section at the Raynes Park branch library.

 

Further proof that in Konoha, only ninja get to do anything fun.

 

As Sakura, she dutifully memorizes the 100 Rules of Shinobi Conduct. She studies them religiously, and for a while she’ll occasionally find herself reciting them under her breath in both lives like a catechism. As Hermione, The Rules are less clearly defined. In Konoha, if something isn’t explicitly forbidden she’s taught to interpret it as implicitly allowed. As Hermione, there are a million “hidden” rules she’s expected to follow. Even after years in school, a new one will occasionally catch her by surprise. It’s always Hermione, not Sakura, who gets into trouble as a result. In both worlds, she tries very hard to follow The Rules, and be a model student. It’s just much more difficult as Hermione; she over-compensates and winds up with a reputation for being a teacher’s pet as she grows old.

 

A few scant months after signing her Citizen’s Oath as Sakura, just before Sakura’s tenth birthday, Hermione successfully completes her first jutsu, the Rope Escape. It’s the most basic, beginner technique; so comparatively forgiving of chakra ratios and requirements that it’s barely considered E-ranked. The success feels just as wonderful a feeling as she’d always imagined.

 

For a long time, she doesn’t think chakra exists at all in England. Occasionally odd things tend to happen around her, but after years of meditation with no results, she’s mostly chalked the incidents down to coincidence. At eight, she finally accepts that she’ll never be as strong, fast, or nimble as Hermione as she is Sakura. This too comes after years of dance and gymnastics. A particularly disastrous attempt at Tae Kwon Do the summer before second grade is the death knell in Hermione’s dreams of super-strength. That’s okay, though. She decides Hermione doesn’t need chakra to be a kunoichi—she’ll just be a research ninja instead. _The pen is mightier than the sword_ , she’s taught as Hermione, and as Hermione she’ll prove that phrase can be true.

 

She’ll be the smartest, mightiest kunoichi either world has ever seen. Sakura with her sword; Hermione with her pen.

 

Ambitions aside, much of the time Raynes Park seems incredibly dull and boring compared to Konoha. As Sakura, she knows exactly who she is and where she belongs. She has a best friend, Yamanaka Ino, who rescues her from bullies in her first year at the Academy. She’s popular at school, and she’s even been asked out by a boy before! Multiple times! Even if that boy was Uzumaki Naruto, whose infuriating immaturity drives her up the wall, it still boosts a sense of surety in Sakura she lacks as Hermione. Sakura’s sensei constantly encourage her push herself, to work hard, learn more, and make Konoha and her family proud. She thrives in that environment. Not the strongest physically, nor the best in taijutsu or weapons throwing, but constantly improving.

 

As Hermione, however, she’s alone. Her English classmates find her mannerisms creepy. In primary school, unlike Konoha, it’s not _cool_ to know everything. Overachievers are made fun of, teased and belittled instead of admired. Her teachers profess to adore her, but kids her own age? Not so much. They think it’s weird when she’s ten years old and reading history textbooks and elementary science primers for fun during recess.

 

In both lives, she is blessed with wonderful and supportive parents. But that’s not enough for Hermione, not when she knows what she’s missing because she has it as Sakura.

 

It’s not that she dislikes England, or her life as Hermione. It’s different, though. In Konoha, she is working towards being part of something bigger. She’s proud of Konoha, of what it represents and for being the first Hidden Village to emerge from the Warring Clans Era. For providing a safe place where children can grow up without fear of being murdered for their Clan name or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She knows Konoha isn’t perfect. As Hermione, she’s been encouraged to question _everything_ , especially the government. She learns of the atrocities carried out in the name of God and the State, of the brutal dictatorships of Stalin, Mao Zedung and Hitler. She’s taught of _Never Again_ and of propaganda. She’s taught that allowing for child soldiers is wrong in both lives, but in England a child is defined solely by age over ability. In Konoha, she’ll be a legal adult when she turns fifteen or when she receives her forehead protector, whichever comes first. At twelve, she’ll finish with her formal education. In England, she’ll have to wait until she’s eighteen on both counts.

 

Had she only been Hermione, perhaps Konoha would have seemed horrifying. A hidden village is effectively a largely autonomous military dictatorship within a country. A Kage is purported to have the same power as a Daimyo, but in practice the Daimyo have virtually no say within the running of a Hidden Village. Political power within Konoha is concentrated in the shinobi.  She’s as much Sakura as she is Hermione by this age, though.

 

She knows that in the Elemental Nations, life is often short and swift, chakra having fundamentally altered the pace of a shinobi’s life. The God of Shinobi founded Konohagakure at twenty-nine. The Yondaime single-handedly turned the tide in Konoha’s favor in the Third Great Shinobi War at twenty-one, becoming the first shinobi in _recorded history_ to receive a “flee-on-sight” designation in an enemy’s bingo book. He’s elected Hokage at twenty-two, then dies killing the demon fox to protect the village at twenty-five.

 

Sakura knows she’s expected to grow up faster than Hermione. She knows that even though she’ll be a legal adult when she graduates, she won’t be expected to move out from her parents until she’s fifteen at the earliest. She knows that she’ll by no means be expected to stop learning when she graduates—in fact, it’s only then that her _real_ training will begin.

 

Sakura also knows that before Konoha it was commonplace for children to enter the battlefields as young as five or six with far less training. Even Hatake Kakashi, a once-in-a-generation prodigy who picks up ninja skills like average children learn new kanji, doesn’t experience war in that way until he’s been a chuunin for two and a half years. She knows that the Konohagakure Shinobi Academy is the _first_ known example of a multi-year, structured training program for aspiring ninja. She knows that it was the Nidaime who instituted the Citizen’s Oath half-way through the Academy curriculum, ensuring that kids wouldn’t be bound by long-term commitments before they were old enough to understand what that meant. (Interestingly, it’s the Elder Koharu who later campaigned, successfully, for the Citizen’s Oath to be pushed to the end of the third year of training instead of the second.)

 

Sakura knows that it was the Shodaime who turned the four-man team, with the village’s strongest guiding and protecting their weakest shinobi, into a standard that became the de facto way of training genin in most villages. She learns of how the Yondaime instituted the Academy Reforms to broaden the curriculum and further improve the training of young ninja. She learns of how the Sandaime returned to enforce these reforms, transforming the Academy into a six-year program and ensuring the graduation age largely shifts to twelve. In Konoha, genin are not be sent into the field without enough basic knowledge to protect themselves and their teams.

 

She knows that Konoha is not perfect, but it doesn’t pretend to be. In the Academy they also learn of Whirlpool, Konoha’s greatest shame. They learn of the darker aspects of shinobi life, of assassinations and torture and death, and why they’re necessary. They’re visited weekly by active-duty shinobi who tie the abstract lessons to the real-life, first hand mission experiences. She knows that every Hokage dreams of a day where such lessons are no longer necessary. She learns that dream, that burning desire to protect your loved ones and the willingness to fight for them, is what the Nidaime first called the “Will of Fire.”

 

So yes, she’s proud to call Konoha her home. Borrowing the phrase from her life as Hermione, she and her classmates stand on the shoulders of giants. (Literally, in the case where they visited the Valley of the End with its fifty-foot statues.)

 

She spends a lot of time trying to find even a fraction of that purpose as Hermione. She wants Hermione to stand and be respected in her own right, not for Hermione to merely grow up as a support system for her life as Sakura. As she grows older and begins to learn more and more about Earth, with its hundreds of nations and thousands of years of recorded history, she begins to see places where she might one day find her Will of Fire as Hermione.

 

Her childhood plans for the future go straight out the window when on September 19, 1990, Hermione’s eleventh birthday, her family receives a visit from a woman that would change her life forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is intended as a prequel/starting point for a larger series that will span the canon eras of both worlds. That's not a project I'm planning on working on in the near future, however, so feel free to use the concept or this work as a starting point if you're interested!


	2. Bhakti: Ron & Naruto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In both worlds he gives his love freely, even as he wrestles with insecurities.

Ronald Bilius Weasley is born to Molly and Arthur Weasley in the maternity ward of St. Mungo’s Hospital on March 3rd, 1980. He’s the sixth child born to the couple, and he will be the final boy. He’s not as innately brilliant as Hermione, but he has five older brothers who delight in teaching and playing with him to make up for it. He’s exactly seven months and one week old on October 10, 51 PE when Uzumaki Naruto is both born and orphaned.

 

He is a loud and fussy baby in both worlds. He is used to the love and care he receives as Ron. While Naruto is not precisely neglected, it’s clear that his caretakers dislike him. His cries are left untended for just a moment longer than proper; he’ll be left to cry himself hoarse if they then ascertain nothing obvious is wrong with him. As Naruto, he cries a great deal. Cries for his mom, for the love and comfort he’s missing as Naruto. He’s too young to understand why half of the time he lives in a strange place with cold women that don’t coo or read him Babbitty Rabbity with his favorite funny voices.

 

As Ron, he grows up as a normal wizarding child. He spends most of his time playing outdoors making mud pies and de-gnoming the garden with his older brothers. Even though his receives slightly less attention once his baby sister is born, he never once doubts that he is loved.  As Naruto, he believes he will always remain unloved.

 

Naruto is much slower to pick up his native language. For Naruto, there’s no mother or father to praise him for successes and correct him when he’s wrong. For Naruto, there aren’t five older siblings constantly speaking around him. As Ron, Fred and George spend weeks trying to teach him to say their names. Instead, his first word is “mama.”

 

As Naruto, his first word is the “manma.” To him, it’s a question, an infant’s attempt to ask for his mother. His caretakers interpret it as a request for food. The Matron scowls and mutters about bratty, needy babies: Naruto already eats far more than other children. She still goes and gets him another bottle. She hates the Kyuubi brat, but she doesn’t want hunger left untended for too long to be the reason another Nine-Tails Attack occurs.

 

It’s fortunate, perhaps, that he’s too young to understand these sentiments.

 

As Ron, he clings to his family. When he’s three he begins to fear that he will one day be trapped as Naruto and left alone forever. He wakes his weary parents more than once with his inconsolable sobbing, stuttering out his fears of loneliness and a disappearing family.

 

He doesn’t realize that his situation is not normal. He assumes everyone else lives another life in Konoha too. For a while, he even believes that Fred and George are the same person, lucky enough that both parts of him get to live at the Burrow. When he tries to explain all this, his mom is left with the impression that he thinks everyone has a twin somewhere. She explains gently that’s not how it works.

 

Molly Weasley is much more indulgent than the Grangers. When he insists that _I def’nitely got a twin! It’s just Naruto lives far away!_ she plays along. She fondly tells Ron that his twin must be the hero of another realm. According to Ron, Naruto has scars on his face (whisker marks, but Ron’s only three and isn’t the best at explaining) and is an orphan. She decides his twin was inspired by the bedtime stories she tells of Harry Potter the wizarding hero. She reassures him that as Ron, he will always have the Weasleys. Even if they had to travel all the way to Konoha to find him.

 

The promise becomes engrained in his mind. With it comes the relief of knowing that even as Naruto, he’s not completely alone. The story sticks too and for years Ron will occasionally ask his older brothers or parents questions that he can’t get answers for as Naruto.

 

As Naruto, he now knows he’ll be the Hero one day. As he grows older, he begins to leave the orphanage and explore the world around him more and more. He doesn’t understand why all the adults either pretend he doesn’t exist or scowl when he walks by. Doesn’t understand why the other kids won’t ever play with him. When he learns of the Hokage one day, of the heroes with their faces carved into mountains, he knows with the certainty of a four-year-old that someday his face will be up there too. He wants to be acknowledged, both as Ron and Naruto. But it’s only as Naruto that he possesses the iron-clad belief that he will be someday, _believe it!_

 

It’s a conviction that will linger, even as he grows older and loses the memories of his mother’s words that sparked it.

 

He meets the Sandaime when he is four and instantly falls in love with his Ojiji-san. The Sandaime is surely his Merlin, and Naruto is that much closer to becoming King Arthur. The Hokage is the first person to ever acknowledge him and the first adult to ever like him. His hero-worship of anyone who’s held the title of Hokage only grows, as does his desire to become a shinobi and eventually Hokage himself.

 

When he’s five he begins to find it increasingly difficult to handle the callous disregard of the women at the orphanage, to tolerate the behaviors that verge on emotional abuse and neglect. The next time he meets with his Ojiji and the man asks how he’s doing, he bursts into tears. He rants about how “he knows he’s different” (because he’s the Hero), and that “people like him don’t get to have parents” (because all Heroes are orphans), but he can’t take it anymore. He _hates_ the stupid Matron and her stupid assistants. He’s sick and tired of the stupid kids who bully him when they bother to notice he exists at all.

 

“I’ll run away!” he cries, face tear-tracked and nose running. “I’ll go live in the woods, make my own Burrow, and then you can visit me there and I won’t have to deal with any of the _stupid_ people in the orphanage!”

 

He moves into his own apartment a week later.

 

As Ron he spends weeks in the kitchen with his mother learning how to cook because as Naruto she isn’t there to cook for him. Molly is thrilled that one of her children is so eager to learn from her. She might have preferred Ginny take an interest in cooking, but she’s content to have finally found something to bond with her youngest son over.

 

It’s around this time that Naruto stumbles upon Ichiraku Ramen for the first time. It’s Ron’s sixth birthday, and the juxtaposition between Ron’s birthday party packed with family and friends and Naruto’s lonely apartment proves too much for the child to handle. He winds up at the ramen stand, one he’s never tried to visit before, out of the sheer need for some sort of company. Few restaurants will turn away a paying customer. Teuchi, the owner, pauses when he sees Naruto sitting down at his counter. Naruto braces himself for the look of disgust, already shrinking in on himself. Instead, Teuchi smiles and tells Naruto of the two-for-one special he’s doing tonight, if his new customer is interested.

 

Naruto’s eyes widen in surprise, and then he beams. Just like that, Naruto gains a new favorite food and his circle of loved ones grows by one.

 

By the time he’s six, he begins to understand that Ron’s family doesn’t believe Naruto exists, and that twins aren’t actually the same person. He knows Naruto is just as real as Ron is, but he doesn’t know how to prove it. Slowly he begins to mention his life as Naruto less and less until one day he stops talking about it at all.

 

It’s the twins that inspire him to begin pranking as Naruto. He quickly gains a reputation as a creative and resourceful troublemaker. It’s so much better than being ignored so he continues, pranks growing increasingly daring and elaborate.

 

He enters the Academy at six, but his test scores leave a lot to be desired. As Naruto, he finds that he’s always bursting with energy. It’s harder to focus in general, and the issue is exacerbated by a sensei who is far less patient than his mum. As Ron his mother teaches him to read and write. As Naruto he lacks a dedicated teacher and his literacy correspondingly suffers. Though he gets by, Naruto struggles and soon falls behind his peers.

 

He begins skipping lectures. Naruto hates the Academy, thinks it’s a waste of his time trying to learn a bunch of stupid theory that doesn’t help him and memorize a bunch of pointless rules that are often the exact opposite of what he’s taught as Ron. He’s already learning math elsewhere; it’s the same in both worlds and when his mom teaches it the numbers actually make sense. They won’t even start to learn magic (or _catchra,_ or whatever stupid name they have for it in Konoha) until their fourth year. He’s grown up around magic, grown up watching his siblings progress through Hogwarts and his parents cast charms for a million different purposes. His dad especially is prone to explaining what he’s doing when he notices Ron’s attention. He’s pretty sure his dad knows more than the stupid sensei at the Academy about magic anyways. Besides, when he _finally_ gets to go to Hogwarts he’ll learn all that stuff there and the staff will probably be much nicer. People don’t dislike Ron the way they dislike Naruto.

 

Ron learns a lot from his older brothers and his parents. He learns to stand up for himself. When Fred and George trick him into tasting an Acid Pop one day and he burns a hole in his tongue, it’s Charlie who helps him get revenge. He learns the difference between pranking and bullying when the twins turn his teddy bear into a tarantula. From mum he learns to be kind in the face of the latter, even though it’s really hard sometimes. From all this, he learns to paste a bright smile on his face as Naruto, becoming exuberant and bubbly in a way that he could never manage as Ron.

 

He’s seven when he first falls in love with the Chudley Cannons and they become his heroes. They’re considered a joke by most of the League yet still they never give up. Especially as Naruto, it inspires him. He plasters his room at the Burrow with orange team posters and orange child-sized quidditch robes and even an orange bedspread. When as Naruto he stumbles upon an orange track-suit at the store, he falls instantly in love. It’s intended for Academy children doing nighttime training exercises, but hasn’t sold well because unfortunately most children don’t want to wear that much orange.

 

Naruto buys three of the neon orange jackets and five pairs of the pants.

 

At eight, he begins to learn hand-signs and assumes they’re Konoha’s replacement for wands. Soon he’s nine and taking his Citizen’s Oath. He scores a 70.5% on the exams that year, half a percent over the minimum threshold for entering the upper-level years of the Academy. Naruto does this despite not being able to read half the questions correctly.

 

He is ten when Iruka becomes the sensei for his class. At first, he doesn’t seem any different than any of his past sensei. Naruto writes him off as another adult that seems to prefer a world where Naruto doesn’t exist.

 

Iruka does see him, though. Naruto’s behaviors and antics remind him of another orphan who’d once lashed out through pranks and misbehaviors.

 

A few weeks into the new trimester, Iruka notices Naruto squinting at his textbook. For his part, Naruto’s busy trying to decipher the section of the textbook he’s supposed to be reading. It’s much more kanji-intensive than the primers designed for new readers they’d received in the early years of the Academy. Naruto’s never been good at memorization in general, so though he’s pretty sure the kanji he’s reading means “dry”, he’s also _pretty sure_ the Yondaime turning the tide in a battle against a _dry_ ninja doesn’t make sense.

 

Iruka asks if he’s having difficulty understanding something. Naruto’s not sure if he’s being made fun of, but after a moment he nods anyways and explains the problem. Iruka goes ahead and defines the kanji for him, but also wants to teach his students how to solve problems and find answers on their own. He asks why Naruto didn’t just look up the unfamiliar word in his dictionary.

 

Naruto doesn’t know how to use the dictionary. He’s tried looking up kanji before and is good enough at pattern recognition to recognize that similar-looking kanji are grouped together, but the part of the kanji they’re sorted by is entirely random near as he can tell. Worse, even if he does guess the correct section to page through, the kanji are then ordered just as randomly within the sections. Dictionaries here aren’t like the ones at the Burrow. There’s no “alphabetical order” for him to refer to. There’s no one willing to help him learn either, so he’s long since resigned himself to be lost and moved on to other issues.

 

Iruka frowns, briefly explains that the dictionary is organized by radical. When Naruto doesn’t even know what a radical is at all, Iruka is horrified. Naruto should have learned that in pre-Academy… but then Iruka learns Naruto never went. Failing that, he should have learned about radicals in language lessons his first year at the Academy. Failing _that_ , Naruto should have been enrolled in one of the remedial lessons that are taught in the afternoons, and learned there.

 

Naruto’s never attended a remedial session. Until Iruka asks, he doesn’t even know they exist. None of his past sensei have recommended him for one, though they should have the moment Naruto began to fall behind. When Iruka expresses this, Naruto sullenly retorts that they’d have to notice he exists first, and then actually care after that. _‘Sides, it’s not like it would help much._ _I’m too stupid to ever read properly._

 

Iruka seems furious when Naruto stops speaking. For a moment, Naruto thinks Iruka’s mad at him.

 

He’s not.

 

A few days later, Naruto finds himself enrolled in the reading and writing remedial courses. Reading meets Monday, Wednesday, Friday; writing meets Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. For some reason, Iruka is again his sensei in these classes. They quickly become some of the few lessons Naruto reliably attends. (He doesn’t know this, but Iruka storms into the Hokage’s office that very evening after he first spoke to Naruto. The chuunin who taught those courses—who also happened to be Naruto’s sensei his first three years—suddenly finds himself out of a job and under investigation for sabotaging Academy students. Konoha’s leaders take the future of their shinobi forces _very seriously._ )

 

The first time Iruka ruffles his hair at the end of a writing lesson, Naruto’s heart swells. It’s the first time he remembers receiving any form of physical affection as Naruto. The group of treasured individuals in his heart gains another member.

 

The presence of a sensei who actually cares about Naruto’s success as a ninja helps, but ultimately Iruka is just one man. He is too fair of a person to allow himself to favor Naruto over his other students. Naruto needs the attention, but the other students are equally deserving in his eyes and he won’t neglect their potential for the sake of Naruto’s. While Naruto’s literacy and handwriting improves drastically, it remains a weakness he will struggle with for years.

 

Reading is not the only thing students are taught at the Academy, of course. At nine, they’re walked through the basics of chakra unlocking and manipulation. He finds the leaf concentration exercise ridiculously challenging. Naruto works himself to exhaustion for weeks just to master the most basic version of the exercise. When they begin learning actual ninjutsu, starting with the Henge, he doesn’t learn any more quickly. It’s almost a year before his Henge of the Hokage stops coming out as a female, child-sized version of the man with a huge nose and fat lips.

 

He’s stubborn to a fault, and his single-minded focus on succeeding with ninjutsu causes his weaponry and theoretical work to suffer further. After hundreds of hours of outside practice, Naruto finally transforms into a perfect copy of the Sandaime. A few weeks later, he manages to learn Kawarimi quicker than most of his class. Naruto experiences for the first time what it’s like to be _good_ at something.

 

By ten he’s convinced that he’s no longer benefitting from remaining a student in the Academy. The lessons are still incredibly boring even now that he likes the sensei giving the lecture. Besides, he’s confident anything he doesn’t know by now he can learn on the job as a genin. The only technique of the four they learn in the Academy he can’t do is the Bunshin!

 

He applies for early graduation, but of course his weakness means that the Bunshin is one of the two ninjutsu tested in the final exam that year. Naruto’s scores in the other areas are passable, but they aren’t nearly high enough to make up for outright failing a section of the exam. Thus, he is forced to stay in the Academy for another year.

 

He’s crushed, but the excitement of being so close to getting his own wand and heading off to Hogwarts finally as Ron ensures that he doesn’t let it keep him down for long. He’ll pass the next year, _believe it!_

 

It’s a month before Naruto’s eleventh birthday when, on September 1, 1991, Ron boards the Hogwarts Express. Both of his lives change forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think of this chapter, and Ron/Naruto's character! Final chapter coming soon, but it's been the hardest to write, as you might imagine from the two main characters involved...


	3. Karma: Sasuke & Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In both worlds his family is stolen from him by a madman with red eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter lives up to those warnings posted in the tags. Consider yourself warned.

Uchiha Sasuke is born on July 23rd, 51 PE to Uchiha Fugaku and Mikoto. He’s named for the grandfather of the then-retired Third Hokage, a symbolic gesture of Uchiha loyalty to the village. Of the three, he is the only one born in Konohagakure before England. His two selves are also the closest in age, for eight days later Harry James Potter is born on July 31, 1980 to James and Lily Potter.

 

In both worlds, he is born to two loving parents, though cultural differences mean the Uchiha are far less outwardly expressive of their love than the Potters. He is incredibly bright; in any other lifetime, Sasuke might be considered a genius even without the addition of another life of experiences as Harry. But as Sasuke, he is instead left constantly chasing the coattails of Itachi, his older brother. Sasuke pales in comparison to the unparalleled prodigious talent of his sibling. Itachi graduates in a single year after testing out of the lower years of the Academy entirely. He officially becomes a ninja at the age of seven, when Sasuke is only six months old.

 

Harry’s parents dote on him. Sasuke was born first, but it’s Harry who begins to speak first. His first word is dada; James is over the moon and doesn’t stop bragging about his brilliant son to everyone who will listen for weeks. Sasuke’s first word comes a few days later, but his dada is interpreted first as baby talk and then, when he persists, as _dareda_ , an informal way of saying “who is it?”

 

It’s an odd first word. Fugaku is seen grumbling about having a son already shaping up to be so rude and impertinent. Those who know him recognize this as quiet pride at his youngest beginning to speak. To outsiders it is further evidence of the Uchiha Clan’s cold-heartedness.

 

Harry and Sasuke are fifteen months old when on October 31, 1981, Harry loses his parents.

 

The Uchiha have never been the most popular clan in Konoha. In the wake of the Kyuubi Attack and their relocation to the outer districts, tensions begin to rise. Memories of Madara and the Valley of the End give way to whispers of _Sharingan_ and _sabotage._ The Clan becomes more isolated and Sasuke grows up in a world where everyone is a relative. The shop owners are Uchiha. The police are Uchiha. The children at the park, the older cousins who occasionally babysit him, the old men sitting on benches soliloquizing about the good ol’ days… they are all Uchiha.

 

For Harry, the opposite becomes true. He has no family, save for the Aunt and Uncle that grudgingly take him in and their son. They look nothing alike, and for the most part the Dursleys prefer to pretend that he doesn’t exist. For his third birthday, they tell him he’s getting his own room now that he and Dudley are too old to share. Harry’s thrilled up until the moment his Uncle grins and opens the door to the cupboard under the stairs. His new “room” is little more than a mattress shoved in a closet. Trying not to shed tears, he forces himself to channel the optimism and cheery disposition from his life as Sasuke and determinedly tells himself, _“At least you won’t have to listen to Dudley’s snoring every night anymore.”_

 

Harry learns early on not to do or say anything his relatives might interpret as abnormal in any way. _Freak_ is amongst the nicest of the things his relatives call him whenever he does anything Unnatural. His Clan lessons as Sasuke teach him about chakra. Harry conjectures that the odd incidents that seem determined to happen around him occasionally are side-effects from his training in another world. He’s never heard of anyone accidentally turning their teacher’s wig blue with chakra, though. _Perhaps an undirected genjutsu of some sort…?_

 

It goes without saying that Harry knows better than to question his relatives about his life as Sasuke. He never mentions it as Sasuke either. A small, hidden part of him is afraid that if he tells anyone, the Uchiha will see that he’s a Freak too.

 

Attempts at basic chakra manipulation exercises progress much more slowly as Harry than as Sasuke. He chalks it up to Harry lacking both Uchiha blood and Clan support. He’s already almost six when Harry successfully makes his hand glow for the first time. That same day, Sasuke’s sixth birthday, he successfully casts the Great Fireball Technique in front of his entire Clan. It only took him a week to learn it.

 

In both lives he is curious and a quick learner. As Sasuke, he’s incredibly driven. He’s constantly pushing himself to grow stronger in an attempt to measure up to Itachi in his father’s eyes. The Dursley’s constant belittlement wears on him, but he’s stubborn enough that it doesn’t stop some of that drive from carrying over into his life as Harry.

 

On October 31, 57 PE, a couple of weeks into the final trimester of Sasuke’s first year in the Academy, Sasuke loses his entire Clan.

 

That morning, Sasuke is the only Uchiha child to attend the Academy. The remainder take the day off to help with preparations for the upcoming _Loi Krathong_ celebration. Sasuke wants to skip as well, but his father insists that as the son of the Clan Head it would be a sign of disrespect for him to miss class. He almost tries to skip anyways, but Itachi intervenes by personally walking him to school. He’s not about to disappoint his nii-san (even though his big brother had been ignoring him recently), so he attends class.

 

It's a normal day at the Academy. They cover the basics of Konohagakure’s government in lecture; their outdoor lessons are a mixture of physical conditioning and learning the basics of holding kunai. Boring because Sasuke’s the fastest and strongest in his year and learned the proper way to hold a kunai _years_ ago, but utterly normal. As he makes his way home, Sasuke gears up to tell his brother about the obnoxiously loud blond who’d interrupted sensei in the middle of class to proclaim he wants to be Hokage.

 

The gates of the compound are closed when he arrives. The guard that’s usually there to greet him ( _Koudai-san_ ) is missing. He opens the gate slowly. He’s greeted by absolute silence where there should be the organized chaos of burgeoning festivities.

 

The uneasy feeling grows.

 

He passes the senbei shop where Teyaki and Uruchi often greet him with a post-Academy snack.

 

Today, it’s their corpses that greet him. Uruchi’s facedown, a dark splotch where she’s been stabbed ( _straight through the heart_ , he hysterically notes). Teyaki’s fallen backwards, stool upturned and tan shirt turned burgundy with blood.

 

He can’t even scream. He just knows he needs to find Itachi. Big brother will know what to do. Brother always knows what to do. He flees towards his house. Eyes blurred with tears, he passes corpse after corpse.

 

Bloodstain after bloodstain.

 

Cousin after cousin.

 

As he gets further into the compound, the kills get messier and his horror grows. He can’t process. He needs Itachi. Itachi will fix everything.

 

He reaches home.

 

Finds his parents.

 

( _dead-dead-dead_ )

 

Finds Itachi ( _red-eyes-not-real-bloody-sword-not-possible_ ) standing over their bodies.

 

The siblings lock eyes.

 

Sasuke screams.

 

He doesn’t stop screaming for a long time.

 

The next several weeks are a blur. He wakes up as Harry the moment Sasuke ( _mercifully_ ) loses consciousness. His screams are horrifying, hopeless, and heart-breaking. His neighbors call 9-1-1, convinced a child is being violently murdered next door. His relatives aren’t home; it’s a Saturday morning and they’d left the night before to visit Vernon’s parents.

 

It’s lucky for them Harry took the opportunity to sleep on the couch after staying up late watching TV. As it is they’ll still find themselves facing questions about leaving a six-year-old alone in a house overnight.

 

The Emergency Respondents are forced to sedate him. It’s nearly a week before he regains any semblance of rationality. Harry wakes up in a children’s hospital surrounded by concerned adults. He cries of _red eyes_ and _blood everywhere_ and _made me see it over and over and over and over and—_

 

It’s impossible for him to coherently explain.

 

When he falls asleep that night, he doesn’t think he’s ready to wake up as Sasuke, to _blood-red-dead-murdered-gone-ALONE_.

 

When he next awakens, he’s still Harry and he learns that _not_ waking up as Sasuke might actually be worse.

 

It’s five days before he understands that he didn’t kill anyone either as Harry (who they think believes this) or Sasuke (who remembers holding the sword, cutting a bloody swathe through the Uchiha in hyper-realistic detail). Several more days pass before he can stand to think about That Night without immediate sobs or panic.

 

All told, seventeen days pass before Harry is discharged. The doctors conclude that Harry is not suffering from a major psychiatric disorder, though he will be closely monitored for a long time to verify that diagnosis. He’s still at the age where it’s possible for otherwise-healthy children to be unable to distinguish reality from nightmare. They conclude that something he must have seen or heard, coupled with stress and the latent trauma of his parents dying in front of him, caused the unusually-violent episode. They release him back into the custody of his Aunt and Uncle with several mandatory follow-up health checks and therapist visits in his future. On Privet Drive, he’s moved into Dudley’s second bedroom without fanfare.

 

Eighteen days have passed from That Night when Sasuke finally awakens once more.

 

He’s cried so much as Harry that when Sasuke wakes up the first thing he feels isn’t grief. It’s shock. He’d begun to think Sasuke had died at the hands of That Man. (The tiniest part of him had almost been relieved at that. If Sasuke was dead, at least he wouldn’t ever have to face the prospect of a life in Konoha without his Clan.)

 

As Sasuke, he doesn’t cry. He asks if anyone else from the Clan still lives. ( _No._ ) He asks if they caught That Man. ( _No._ ) He asks if they know why he did it. ( _No._ ) The question prompts a memory, and Sasuke remembers That Man’s claim of _testing his power_. He wonders how killing everyone, killing babies and pregnant mothers and arthritic Elders alongside the shinobi of the family, proves That Man is powerful. He asks that too. ( _No one answers_.)

 

He doesn’t ask if That Man will one day come back to try to kill him.

 

He already knows the answer to that one.

 

( _Yes._ )

 

As Sasuke, there will be no follow-up therapy. He knows it’s probably not healthy, but he insists on moving back into his Clan’s compound when they release him. He can’t bear to lose the last shred of family either Sasuke or Harry have left.

 

He doesn’t return to That House. Instead, he moves into a small cottage in the middle of the Uchiha training forests. It’s built with the needs of battle-worn Uchiha in mind. Intended for clan members in need a bit of seclusion after particularly taxing missions, it’s small and it’s safe. (More importantly, he doesn’t immediately see the corpses of his loved ones in his mind’s eye when he’s there.)

 

He doesn’t return to the Academy for the rest of that trimester; he’s not nearly up to being surrounded by people once more. It’s hard enough for Harry, but as Sasuke the stares are so much worse, the grief so much more immediate. In Konoha, he’s the lone survivor of the Uchiha Clan Downfall. No one seems quite sure how to treat him and consequently they all walk on eggshells when he’s around.

 

His sensei are understanding of his decision to take a temporary leave. He receives a weekly visit from one of them ensuring he’s keeping up with his coursework and exercises. He otherwise remains alone in the relative solitude and isolation of nature. He only leaves when empty cabinets force him to stock up on food.

 

He spends much of this time thinking.

 

That Man wants him to seek revenge. That Man told him to embrace his hatred in order to avenge his family. Sasuke hates and wants the man _gone_. Harry learns from his therapist that _the best revenge is living well_.

 

Sasuke will one day kill his brother or he will die trying, he has no doubt about that. But it won’t be out of hatred or for whatever twisted reason That Man wants. Sasuke will rebuild the Uchiha Clan, make it a name spoken of with awe and respect once more. There’s no way he’ll be able to do that when a monster bearing the Uchiha name is still out there bent on the Clan’s destruction.

 

Sasuke will learn. He’ll grow strong. When he’s ready, he’ll ensure That Man can never be a threat to his or any other family again.

 

The reprieve coupled with the therapy he’s receiving as Harry is enough that he returns to the Academy after the Lunar New Year. He begins his second year of shinobi training with his Academy class once more.

 

He’s lucky, perhaps, that his duality spares him from constantly waking up from Tsukyomi-based nightmares.

 

As Sasuke, he spends nearly every waking moment training or studying in some way. He works himself to near-exhaustion with physical and chakra conditioning, then studies and practices his mental abilities until he’s recovered enough to train once more.

 

As Harry, he is no less intense. He sees his life in Surrey as the only way he has to potentially gain an edge. That Man will undoubtedly also continue to increase in power as time passes. His life at Harry is his secret weapon—as Harry, he has access to the knowledge base of an entire world that, as far as he knows, no one else does. That Man certainly doesn’t, at least, and that’s enough for Sasuke. He lets his attempts to learn to manipulate chakra as Harry fall to the wayside, only occasionally practicing the skill. Sasuke has a psychopathic mass-murderer after him; both of his lives are focused on ensuring he’ll be the sole survivor of their next encounter.

 

On his therapist’s suggestion and with his Aunt’s encouragement, Harry decides to take up gardening and cooking. He justifies it to himself with his therapist’s words on the importance of breaks and relaxation for maintaining long-term productivity. It doesn’t hurt that he’s soon finding ways the knowledge he gains from his hobbies might be applicable to his life as Sasuke. Though they go by different names, plants and animals turn out to be the same in both worlds. (Except possibly the mutants rumored to live in one of Konoha’s training grounds, or summons like That Man’s crows. Baseline animals, at any rate, are the same.)

 

On top of that, the information available on various crossover plants turns out to often be more complete in his English gardening books and botany encyclopedias than in his Konoha field books. He’s quick to take advantage of this in his academic and training schedules. Likewise, the ingredients and recipes available are far more diverse in the Dursley kitchen than Konoha. (Though he quickly learns that the Durlseys do _not_ appreciate Asian food.) Being able to cook proper, nutritious meals is important now that Sasuke can’t rely on—well, it’s important for his development as a shinobi.

 

Soon Harry is spending hours in the kitchen each week, and even longer in the gardens when weather permits.

 

Aside from those hobbies, Harry branches out into learning anatomy and basic first aid. Like with animals, the human body is the human body in both worlds. Sasuke doesn’t care if he knows the proper vocabulary for the body parts in Common as well as English so long as he knows what they are, what they do, why they’re important, and how they might be broken or fixed. The advanced knowledge he’d learn in actual medical school might not be so easily transferrable, but emergency first aid and nature-based treatments are.

 

It doesn’t hurt that he can’t think of anything he could learn more contrary to That Man’s orders. After reading of Tsunade and Kato Dan in Konoha, he makes it a personal goal. Sasuke will be the best damn field medical ninja the Elemental Nations has ever seen. (Maybe then, the next time someone comes after anyone he cares about while he’s not there, he could save them.)

 

For their part, the Dursleys are pleased that Harry’s becoming more Normal. They still don’t particularly like him, but The Incident shook them. They encourage his mundane hobbies and goals in the hopes that, should he one day learn of the Wizarding World despite their best efforts, he’ll choose correctly and refused to get involved with them. (Though she’ll never admit it, Petunia’s thrilled by the way her garden begins to thrive under Harry’s green thumb. Similarly, Uncle Vernon and Dudley are pleased with the increasingly-delicious meals Harry learns to cook.)

 

Years pass in a blur of studying-gardening-training-cooking. He turns seven/eight/nine/ten without fanfare or celebration in either life. If October 31st is a particularly difficult day for him… well, no one expects Sasuke to attend the Academy on that day. In the U.K. it’s a moot point because Halloween is already a school holiday.

 

It’s just after Sasuke’s birthday, on July 24, 1991, that Harry receives a letter in the mail. It’s addressed in deep emerald ink to “Mr. H. Potter” in “The Smallest Bedroom”. The letter itself written on thick, sturdy parchment. He opens it, and his lives are never the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote, for now. This chapter was actually the one that inspired the entire work, although it was by far the hardest one to write and underwent the most revisions during development.
> 
> There are about a million ways this story might develop from here, but for now this work is intended to function as a complete, standalone piece. (That being said, I couldn't resist the urge to write a snippet on how this version of the Trio might handle The Bell Test. Consider them non-canon until proven otherwise, but I might occasionally post Omake like that set in this 'verse.)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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